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Thursday, October 15, 2009

...In The Valley...

I had the opportunity of a lifetime to get to go to General Conference two weekends ago.... I found out that I'd be able to go the Sunday before and the week following I quickly had to make all my arrangements because I was flying in on Thursday... Thanks to the amazing packing knowledge that my friend Katie posses, I was able to pack 4 church dresses, 6 outfits, numerous scarfs/beanies, sneakers, heels, 2 pairs of clogs, flip flops, belts, tons of undies, tights (thanks Aunt Jodi for the heads up) and a couple of hoodies all in a carry-on.... yes, right now you should be doing a slow hand clap that gradually build louder and louder and faster and faster.... Trust me, it was a skill that Katie passed on that I will now have to pass on..... See I heard it would be cold in Utah, but I know their cold and my cold (being a Florida girl and all) would be COMPLETELY! different.... thus presenting the dilemma of not knowing what to pack to keep me warm... that's my explanation of all the clothing I dragged (which by the way, I has the biggest purse that I borrowed from my roommate to carry tons of stuff on the plane too... This included a wool jacket)... Needless to say, I was prepared!

On Thursday at 2:30 my roommate picked me up and took me to the Tallahassee airport (and she got a speeding ticket going back to work! talk about a great friend!) where I boarded the smallest airplane in the world! After I flew over the water and landed in Tampa, I sat around for like a half hour and then boarded a bigger plane to Huston,Texas! Let me tell you what! You know you are in Texas when there is a Bass Pro Shop in the airport! I was super excited because they had Panda Express in the airport and we don't have that in Tallahassee, so of course I jumped on that opportunity! After my delicious Panda dinner accompanied by a phone call to Rachel to pass the time, I boarded my flight to Salt Lake City!!! Well I was super excited about flying into the Salt Lake Valley at night because I would be able to see all the lights pop up over the mountains and see the temples.... NOPE! I got on the wrong side of the plane... instead as I flew in I got the view of the Great Salt Lake, which, at night, is a giant black abyss... Either way, I loved getting to fly... The second they opened the plane door, a huge gust of freezing cold midnight air hit me! Seriously, I about froze.... It was like winter in Florida! I immediately put on my wool coat that got me so many strange looks in the Tallahassee, Tampa, and Huston airports... I guess no one realized that it would be winter in Utah! We landed at like 11:45 pm (yes.... 9 hours of flying!) and I was picked up at the airport by my friend Tom, whoe's form Canada and who was also there for conference... He drove me to Sharon Lowder's cousin's house where I stayed while I was in Utah.... The next morning my friend Aaron picked me up birght and early (11am MST/ 1pm EST) to go around and see as many temples as we could get to in the Valleys... I stressed to him the crazy obsession I had with the temples, so I told him that I hoped he didn't think me crazy for taking tons of pictures of the temples... We were driving to the Oquirrh Mountain temple first, but somhow the Jordan River temple popped up out of no where! I really liked that temple, but it kind of reminded me of a bowtie... It was packed at 11:30 am on a Friday... insane! Then we hit the Oquirrh Mountain Temple that was dedicated the month before... It was by far my absolute favoirte temple in Utah (yes, it even beat Salt Lake.... don't judge me!)... After Oquirrh Mountain, we visited the Draper temple which was not even five minutes away from the house I was staying at... It was also dedicated in 2009, and it was up on the mountain... it was super pretty too.... not to mention the insanely huge, and I mean HUGE! houses next to it...

These are some of the pictures of the houses.... They were insane... pretty much a small modest house.... NOT!After the insane Draper houses and the Salt Lake Valley temples, we headed into Utah Valley and saw the Mount Timpanogos Temple... It looked a lot like the Orlando one, but a lot bit bigger... plus there was some intense neon green and teal blue stained glass.... On our way out of the temple grounds we saw some kids at a private school playing soccer... I thought it was cute and took a picture!

At this point it was like 3 in the afternoon (like 5 at home) and I hadn't really eaten, so Aaron and I went and got some FIve Guys Burgers and Fries (with the famous Utah Fry Sauce) and went and did the cliche Mormon kid thing and went and had a picnic at the Provo Utah temple... In pictures the Provo temple looks a bit, how do you say it, well, different, but in real life, its beautiful!

Once we left the Provo temple we went to go get me a BYU t-shirt so I could go to the BYU v Utah State football game... Pretty much I'm, free of chrage, coming up with better cheers for the cougars... They can thank me later... I made Aaron take a picture of me tomahawking the BYU cougar statue since we pretty muched owned them on their field AND Elder Perkins, an elder serving in my ward right now, didn't believe me that if he game me his family's phone number that I'd meet up with them.... well I did! They had some awesome seats at the game... They are the tightest family I know! I'm really glad I got to meet them... Perkins was super trunky after he saw the pictures... I loved talking to his mom and I think she enjoyed getting to tlak ot someone new about her son :) After BYU stomped Utah State, Aaron and I went to go see my friend Hayden Liljenquist.... We all started watching a movie at his house and next thing I know I'm being woken up because I guess I dosed off.... Aaron took me home so I could sleep and get ready for conference the next morning... I'll be sure to post about the rest of the trip in the next blog....